Padrón

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According to legend, St James completed his miraculous posthumous voyage to Galicia by sailing up the Ría de Arousa as far as PADRÓN. Accumulated silt from the Río Ulla having left it stranded 12km inland, Padrón is no longer even on the sea, and the old town now consists of a handful of narrow pedestrian lanes squeezed between two busy roads. There’s surprisingly little to show for the years of pilgrimage, except an imposing seventeenth-century church of Santiago, where the padrón (mooring post) to which the vessel was tied supposedly resides under the high altar.

Padrón is best known as the source of the small green peppers known as pimientos de Padrón. Available in summer only, they’re served whole, shallow-fried in oil and liberally sprinkled with sea salt. Most are sweet, but around one in ten is memorably hot.